


Hoping Fur the Best

by unnieunnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, O no only one bed, Park Rangers, Pining, Shifters, Tragic sacrifice of sofa cushions, convenient snowstorm, cute people being cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:34:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22500307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnieunnie/pseuds/unnieunnie
Summary: Among all the planning Jongdae did for his winter shift manning a cabin on the Peninsular Trail, he neglected to take into account large predators not native to the area - much less large predators that turned out to be cute guys.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 25
Kudos: 296
Collections: EXZOO : First Exchange





	Hoping Fur the Best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dejakyu (dietsoba)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dietsoba/gifts).



“I can’t believe you’re going to leave me alone all winter!”

After so many years of being best friends with a greyhound hybrid, Jongdae didn’t even try to escape the licking. He let Baekhyun lie on top of him and lick his face, and dreamed fondly of nice-smelling facial cleansers and clean washcloths.

“I’ll come down for the new year if the snow’s not too bad,” he laughed.

He rubbed behind Baek’s ear in the way that made one foot twitch.

“Or maybe you and Soo can come up and make a weekend of it. I don’t have a lot of room, but we can pile in together and be cozy.”

“Roast marshmallows!” Baekhyun said.

“Yeah, of course.”

“All right.”

Baek sat up and batted at his ear, looking at the floor.

“I’m just going to miss you, is all.”

“I’m going to miss you too, Baek.”

Baekhyun looked over with a wry twist to his mouth.

“Oh please. You’re going to write poetry and wander around in the woods and listen to classical music, and every time you finally start to get tired of your own company some hiker will wander by, and you’ll spoil them rotten. You’re so excited you can hardly wait to go.”

Jongdae laughed.

“Yeah, okay. You can smell that on me?”

Baekhyun shoved him.

“Nah, dude, I know you. You just smell happy.”

“I’ll have the satellite phone, and every once in a while there’s enough signal to send an email. I’ll keep in touch as much as I can, okay?”

“Yeah, you’d better, or I’ll bite you when you come back.”

“Fair enough.”

Through long experience, Jongdae insisted on having his going-away party 2 days before he left, so that by the time Seulgi drove him to the trailhead, he had recovered from his hangover.

“Got everything?” she asked while the Land Rover idled in the parking lot, exhaust steaming out the back in the chill late-autumn air.

“If I don’t, I’m out of luck,” Jongdae said with a grin. “See you in March.”

Seulgi left him with a grin and a salute. Jongdae shouldered his heavy-ass backpack, straightened his coat, and set off on the Peninsular Trail.

It being a grey, windy Tuesday, Jongdae didn’t see many hikers while he climbed to the cabin at the highest point on the trail. He did pass one couple going south – on account of his brown park ranger uniform, they stopped him for a chat about trail conditions and weather.

“Lots of animal activity up north,” the woman said. “Maybe some kind of big cat? We heard the creepiest yowling one night, it scared the life out of me.”

Her companion nodded.

“Didn’t bother us at all,” he said. “But I felt like it was maybe tracking us for a while. You know that spooky feeling when you’re not alone. We left notes in the trail diaries.”

“Thanks,” Jongdae said. “I’ll keep a look out.”

It was 2 nights on the trail from the dropoff point to the cabin. Jongdae had been hiking up and down since summer, leaving stuff he’d want for the winter and gossiping with Kyuhyun and then Sooyoung about the hikers and the loneliness. They switched out rangers at the cabin about every 2 months during the warmer weather, since there were more hikers needing more care – between the sparse population and the snow, the winter shift was just over 3 months. Most rangers considered it drawing the short straw, but Jongdae was kind of looking forward to the solitude.

He met another hiker the second day, a guy as dried-up and weathered as a piece of dried squid. He seemed happy to take a couple of packets of ramyeon off Jongdae’s hands and had similar stories about a creepy animal.

“Couple of folks I passed yesterday thought maybe a cat,” Jongdae said.

The old guy nodded.

“Sounded like it,” he said. “Went off trail a bit yesterday, following some rustling, saw claw marks, about chest-high on me. So a big cat. Or maybe feral hybrid.”

Jongdae flinched.

“Let’s hope not that,” he said.

Jongdae sincerely hoped the old guy’s face habitually looked like a sneer and that he wasn’t some kind of speciesist.

“Sure, hope not,” the old guy said, then saluted with the ramyeon packets and headed off down the trail.

That night, Jongdae heard the howling of a large cat, way closer than made him happy. He was in one of the trail shelters that was basically one wall with a slight overhang, which was great for rain or snow and not really of any use at all if a large, toothy creature decided that one smallish park ranger looked like a delicious midnight snack. Not that that was realistic – he had pepper spray, a large knife, and a really loud voice, any one of which was sufficient for most truly wild creatures – but it was hard to be sensible in the middle of the night, having been abruptly wakened by creepy screaming.

Mid-morning on his last day’s hike, he heard something pacing him, far enough off-trail that he couldn’t see it. Jongdae tried to tell himself that it was his over-active imagination, but after a handful of times stopping and starting, hearing that faint rustle mirror his movements or stillness, he couldn’t deny that he was being tracked.

“I promise I’m not delicious,” he said to the trees, and spent the next couple of miles singing to himself, just so he wouldn’t have to hear whatever was in the woods.

Jongdae made it to the cabin at the top of the trail in one piece, early enough in the day that Kyuhyun headed down the trail, with many warnings about the potential creepy stalker cat. Jongdae stocked the nearby hikers’ shelter with wood and read the trail diary and still had time to get the woodstove going in his one-room cabin so that it was kind of almost warm by the time he rolled his sleeping bag out on the platform bed’s crunchy old mattress.

The utter black of the cabin and the pop of the fire in the woodstove meant that Jongdae slept deeply enough for a baby.

He had a run of nice days, and a couple of hikers came through in the first few weeks to provide some entertainment while he settled in. He heard the yowling about every second or third night and asked the hikers about weird noises in the woods – one woman had seen a bear, but otherwise, they only reported the same things he heard around the cabin. As a park ranger, he was allowed to step off trail without feeling guilty about it, and he found a number of trees heavily marked around shoulder level by claws. A couple of the trees bore the heavy, sharp scent of cat urine. Jongdae made sure to triple-check that his food supplies were locked well up. Once he found the remains of what was probably a neoguri, and when he stopped to investigate, the air around him was so tense with the sense of being watched that Jongdae almost apologized before he hiked back to the cabin.

The weather got colder. Jongdae found himself sinking into the solitude and quiet. He had both a solar charger and a hand-cranked battery to charge his phone and give him music. He spent a lot of time sitting on the small porch outside the cabin, singing to himself with a notebook on his knee. A couple of times, he heard faint noises in the trees. Those nights, the screams of the cat sounded way too close for comfort. More and more of the trees surrounding his clearing bore claw marks.

The weather worsened, as winter weather tended to do. At that elevation, mid-December wasn’t early for snow, but to wake up one morning to 10 cm worth overnight was pretty surprising, especially since he’d gone to bed under a still, if cloudy, sky. He’d even had a night of sleep uninterrupted by the screams of large predators.

Large predators such as, for example, the puma he found shivering outside his cabin.

Jongdae stood still and stared at the thing for a couple of minutes while his brain tried to process too many things at once:

  * how glad he was that there weren’t currently any hikers around
  * holy crap giant puma sitting in the snow
  * cat mystery – solved?
  * he knew that pumas were “big cats,” but that was a _big_ cat
  * also very sharp-looking around the paws and face
  * to his knowledge, pumas were not and never had been native to the Korean peninsula



As a park ranger, Jongdae had all kinds of training, and had lectured all kinds of hikers, about how to deal with wild animals. He had said a thousand times, “be loud and make yourself big and most anything’s going to decide you’re not worth it and run off, they’re all more scared of you than you are of them.”

He also knew that this wasn’t always true for wild boars, which had a very high opinion of their own intelligence, and tigers, which were unimpressed by anything as slow and claw-free as a human. But tigers were vanishingly rare and boars wouldn’t be this high up this late in the year.

Also, the way this puma sat and stared at him wasn’t a hunting-type of crouch. It seemed like it wanted something.

The puma yawned, showing a disturbing number of disturbingly large teeth and an excess of pink tongue. It put out one paw and touched the snow in front of it and made a sound that, coming out of a housecat-sized throat, probably would’ve been an unhappy mew.

It was kind of cute. So far as anything that could rip him in half with one bite could be cute.

Still. It was a very large, very deadly-looking animal.

“Go away!” Jongdae shouted.

As the signs on the trail warned (regarding tigers), Jongdae raised his hands over his head and waved them around, trying to look larger.

“Go on! Get!”

The puma stood up and shook its head at him. When it stepped forward, Jongdae retreated back into the house and shut the door. It seemed his trail check would have to wait under later in the day.

By the time the sun went down in late afternoon, Jongdae figured that the puma must’ve thought he looked like dinner, because it had camped out on the porch all day. Every time he looked out the window, it would raise its head and stare at him with dark eyes. A couple of times, it scratched at the door like a dog wanting to come in – which was hella spooky.

The storm meant his chance of internet access was zero: even the satellite phone, his last-ditch means of communication, would be spotty in such weather. So Jongdae was limited to looking up big-cat behavior in the elderly wildlife books shelved among the romance novels and beat-up mysteries on the cabin’s bookshelf. The books didn’t say anything about pumas, of course, their supposedly not being local. He stared at the photos of yellow-eyed tigers, faces so much rounder than the triangular head just outside his door. He read about tiger behavior, and how easily they’d give up on a hunt if thwarted.

Unless they had rabies.

So that was super comforting. Though if it was an escaped zoo animal, maybe it was habituated to humans? And wouldn’t that mean it was less likely to be rabid?

It was a lot of scary questions with potentially scary answers for one guy alone on a mountain in the middle of a snowstorm. With a large predator blocking the door.

God, what Jongdae wouldn’t give for Baekhyun’s nose right about now. Or any hybrid, really.

The puma was still there in the morning, curled up in a circle like a housecat, with a dusting of snow on its fur. Jongdae tried to sneak the door open for a peek, and it jumped up, trying to wedge its head in the opening.

All day he tried to get the thing to go away. The puma was unimpressed by loud noises either behind or on the door, and opening the window to make more noise just inspired the cat to try to jump through that. Jongdae needed to do a trail check – bad weather could mean real danger if any hikers had gotten caught – but the damn cat just wouldn’t leave.

After 1 p.m., he was running out of time go check the trail for distressed hikers, and the clouds had lowered again, promising yet more snow.

Jongdae lost his temper.

He was the one with opposable thumbs in this situation, and the one in charge of the place. He loved animals and hated the thought of ever injuring one, but the situation was stupid, and he was tired of it. He dug the canister out of his pack, armed himself with the fireplace poker, and flung the door open.

He pepper-sprayed the puma right in the face.

Vaulting backwards into the clearing he had expected. Yowling and drool he had also expected.

What Jongdae did not expect was the way that, after rolling around a couple of times, the puma’s shape blurred and changed, until it was a naked man flinging himself about in the snow and screaming.

Baekhyun’s frequent insistence that humans, for all their economic and political power, should be way lower on the food chain on account of their barely functioning senses, suddenly seemed like a much more sensible point than Jongdae had thought previously.

Jongdae dropped his weapons and dashed toward the man. He caught a pretty solid blow to his ribs that left him unable to speak briefly while the man struggled in his hold, still shrieking.

“Hey!” Jongdae yelled when his breath returned, “hey, calm down! It’s just pepper spray, you’re okay!”

He kept yelling as long as the man kept screaming. He kept trying to catch the man’s wrists as long as he kept trying to scratch his own face off. Eventually the pair of them were reduced to a couple of sweaty, wheezing lumps of misery in the snow.

One of whom was very naked and visibly shivering.

“God, I am so sorry,” Jongdae said. “No, don’t rub, you’ll make it worse. Come on.”

The man struggled again, until Jongdae made the desperation move of embracing him. The man moaned.

“I know, it’s awful,” Jongdae said. “Hold on. Can you be calm?”

After a hesitation, the man nodded.

“I’m going to fill your hands with snow, okay? Hold them against your eyes. _Gently_ , don’t grind it in, you’ll make things worse. Just hold it there and I’ll lead you inside, okay?”

The man was shuddering, whether with pain or cold Jongdae didn’t know, but he held the palmfuls of snow against his eyes and let Jongdae lead him by the elbow into the cabin and bent over the sink, still moaning softly. Jongdae poured cooking oil gently over the man’s face, and some of his shuddering abated.

Jongdae didn’t give himself room to think about what the hell was going on until the man had been helped into a pair of Jongdae’s pajamas, had another dose of oil over his eyes and then washed his face with soap, and was sitting wrapped in a blanket in front of the woodstove with a mug of tea in his hands and a toilet paper roll by his hand for all the nose-dripping.

Once the crisis was managed, Jongdae had a very quiet meltdown. He figured that would be best managed by making his own cup of tea. The noise of the kettle masked his gasping breath, and he could hold onto the counter until his hands stopped shaking. That accomplished, Jongdae took his mug and sat next to his puffy-eyed, sniffly visitor.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I never would’ve sprayed you if I’d known you were a shifter.”

The man shook his head and meowed. He frowned, pursed his lips, and tried again.

“Got caught inside the cat,” he said.

His voice was so raspy that it sounded painful.

“You shocked me back into myself. Sorry I scared you.”

Jongdae laughed, and the man tilted his head, then clutched his mug closer to his chest.

“You really did. Are you warming up okay? Eyes not too bad?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again,” the man said. “But it’s better, yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

The man blinked at him blearily a number of times. Jongdae thought that under all the puffiness and redness, he was probably really good-looking.

“Minseok?” the man said. “Minseok. Kim Minseok.”

“I’m Jongdae.”

Minseok’s hand was still ice-cold. Shifters were less common than hybrids, but all the hybrids Jongdae knew ran warmer than humans. Minseok looked at their clasped hands, making a small sound like another meow.

“Is this normal? To snow in September?” he asked.

Jongdae lost track of his breath for a second.

“It’s mid-December,” he said as gently as he could.

Minseok took a bit to parse that, tilting his head back and forth the way Baekhyun did when he heard something interesting but couldn’t place where it was coming from. He made another of those small, distressed sounds in the back of his throat, and Jongdae wondered how shifters felt about being hugged by complete strangers who had recently sprayed them in the face with pepper spray.

“My family,” Minseok choked. “My job, my – my cat.”

He jumped up, body quivering, and the tea splattered on the floor as his mug dropped, forgotten. Jongdae felt mean for the calm inner voice commenting that Minseok’s tears would help wash out any pepper spray residue. He got a hold of himself.

“Jeez, right,” he said. “You need to contact them! I don’t know if I can get any signal, let me try.”

It was just terrible, trying and failing to get any kind of signal on the computer. Jongdae could tell that Minseok was barely able to restrain himself from shoving Jongdae out of the way to sit at the computer – instead, he hovered almost within touching distance, both hands clenched in his (Jongdae’s) pajama top.

“It’s no use, the weather’s too bad,” Jongdae said finally. “I can barely get a signal on clear nights. Let me try the satellite phone.”

Between the cost and spotty service, Jongdae hated trying to use the thing. It crackled a little, but the call would never connect well enough to ring on the other end.

“I’m really sorry. The minute the wind dies down I’ll try again, I promise. We’ll keep trying until we get through, I swear.”

He looked up, and Minseok was looking a little heavy around the jaw and perhaps a bit longer of ear.

“Whoa, hey,” Jongdae said.

He jumped up and grasped Minseok’s upper arms.

He made a mental note to continue ignoring the very interesting biceps, even though they felt as nice under his hands as they had looked uncovered.

“Hey, we’ll get in touch with them, the first minute possible. Don’t freak out on me, here, okay? I need you on two legs while we’re inside, buddy.”

Minseok wheezed around all the gross fluids coming out of his poor face, until his breath calmed and he nodded.

“Sorry.”

Jongdae rubbed his arms.

“Jeez, it’s okay. I bet this is all a lot.”

He rubbed Minseok’s arms until he saw another nod.

“Are you hungry?”

From the series of expressions – ranging from confusion to disgust to horror – that moved across Minseok’s face, Jongdae figured that it took some doing to remember what he’d been eating for the past several months. Jongdae remembered the extremely dead neoguri he’d found in the woods and cringed himself. He wasn’t surprised that Minseok shook his head.

“Maybe a drink?”

Minseok nodded forcefully.

Kind of a relief: Jongdae definitely wanted one too. But he made them both stick to just one shot of whiskey, both because the bottle had to last until the end of Jongdae’s shift and because there was no telling how it would affect a shifter who’d just spent a whole season in animal form. And because Jongdae didn’t want to be rude or drunk in the presence of a large cat, if Minseok shifted back.

Minseok made a wry little smile when Jongdae held up his glass to toast, but he clinked his, and sipped at the shot gingerly.

“Better?” Jongdae asked when it was gone.

“Yes. Warmed me up a bit.”

“You’re still cold?”

Minseok nodded.

Not great news. But human liquor in his stomach made Minseok agree to try some human food. Jongdae watched closely while he cooked, the way Minseok hesitated when he spoke, as if he were trying to remember words, and the way he shuddered with cold every few minutes. Jongdae kept up a constant patter, trying to distract Minseok from staring at the elderly computer. He told Minseok all about the cabin shift, and how he was going to have to trek out on snowshoes first thing in the morning to check for hikers. Amid his chattering, he asked Minseok some basic identity kinds of questions that would be useful later.

“Well, dang,” he said a bit later, setting the spoon down and wiping his hands. “If you guys are that close, Tannie has to be just fine. Your family will have gone to check up on you and found him to take care of him.”

“I hope so,” Minseok said.

He looked so sad, Jongdae would’ve done anything in that moment to make his stupid email work.

“Me too,” Jongdae said. “I really, really do, and I’m going to hope for the best.”

Minseok’s attempt at a smile was pretty bad, but it _was_ an attempt. And he did a decent job with his bowl of sujebi, even if Jongdae had to remind him about a hundred times to eat slowly.

After they ate, Minseok put his arms around himself and stared around the cabin’s one room, wary and miserable again.

“Still cold?”

Minseok nodded.

“I don’t like it,” Jongdae said. “I’m afraid you might have a little hypothermia going on.”

Minseok stared at him. His eyes probably would’ve been opened wide if they weren’t all red and puffy still.

“I’d put you in the shower, but there’s only enough hot water for about five minutes,” Jongdae said.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“The other thing for that’s body heat. Would it, um, freak you out too much to. Er. Snuggle? I’m not trying to be weird or anything, it really is the best way to warm somebody up.”

Jongdae left out the part where, for really bad hypothermia, it needed to be bare-skin cuddling. He didn’t think Minseok was in such dire straits. Anyhow, Minseok nodded agreement.

He was cute, the way he sighed with pleasure over the simple act of brushing his teeth. Though, of course, Jongdae figured he hadn’t done so in months, which was super gross, making the relief understandable. And the way Minseok dabbed moisturizer over his reddened cheeks with his fingertips looked so fancy, it made Jongdae wonder what he was like when he wasn’t freaked out and in physical distress. He supposed he’d find out: even if they did manage to get an email or call out soon, it wouldn’t be safe to hike down the mountain until the snow cleared up.

And then, for all his silence and wariness, after Jongdae had piled all the available blankets on top and slipped into the sleeping bag beside him, Minseok wriggled up close against him, tucking his head under Jongdae’s chin.

Jongdae, whose dating life the past couple of years had been one disappointment after another, hadn’t slept next to anybody in long enough that it felt strange and too warm. A couple of times, Minseok woke him up, making an unhappy growl deep in his chest and twitching. Jongdae hoped it wasn’t taking liberties to run his hand down Minseok’s back until his sleep calmed. The last time it happened, Minseok pressed his knuckles rhythmically into Jongdae’s chest several times, like a housecat kneading, and Jongdae couldn’t help scratching the back of his head in response.

He might’ve been able to ignore that middle-of-the-night adorableness _and_ the awkwardness of two guys and their morning penis situation. But then, while Jongdae was making coffee, Minseok staggered out of the bathroom, still rubbing his eyes, and the puffiness and redness from the pepper spray had eased off.

Minseok was, Jongdae noted with a nervous leap of his gut that wanted to come out of his mouth in giggle form, abso-freaking-lutely gorgeous.

And Jongdae was going to be stuck with him in a snowbound cabin for probably at least a week, like some kind of bad romantic comedy.

“Coffee?”

Minseok rushed over, leaned toward the coffeemaker, sniffed hard, and groaned. It was the kind of sound Jongdae didn’t generally hear out of a person’s mouth until he knew them significantly longer than 18 hours, and usually he’d had more to do beforehand than simply measure out 4 scoops of Kyungsoo’s fancy breakfast blend.

Minseok grabbed his wrist. The night’s snuggles had apparently done their work, because his grip was warm. Which was nice, because all of Jongdae’s blood was currently inhabiting his cheeks and ears.

“Coffee,” Minseok said.

His voice sounded a lot less raspy after his rest, though it still had a slight burr to it. He was just a hair shorter than Jongdae, and his eyes were cat-like even in human form, clear and pretty under thick, expressive eyebrows.

“I wish you’d had this in your hand yesterday. It would’ve done the trick as well as pepper spray.”

Jongdae laughed.

“Without all the pain and drama, even.”

“There’s going to be pain and drama if I don’t get to drink some of that soon,” Minseok said. “Are you going to think I’m weird if I stand here and stare at it until it’s done.”

“After three months without? Absolutely not,” Jongdae said. “You stare, I’ll start breakfast.”

Minseok’s pleasure in a simple breakfast of kimchi, eggs, and rice was really adorable. Jongdae never had a minute to feel awkward trying to dredge up small talk, because Minseok was too busy squeezing his eyes shut and putting one hand against his chest with each bite.

“Not too much,” Jongdae laughed finally. “You don’t want to make yourself sick.”

Sadly, that took the smile off Minseok’s face. He gazed sadly at his bowl, then frowned over at the computer.

“I forgot for a second,” he said.

“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll keep trying until we get through. Signal doesn’t usually go through during the day, but I’ll give you all the login information so you can try while I go check the trail.”

“You have to leave?”

Jeez, not that he wanted to leave, if Minseok was going to be all wide-eyed and distressed-looking.

“I have to make sure there’s nobody needing help on the trail.”

Minseok’s eyes went unfocused.

“I don’t remember any other people nearby recently,” he said slowly. “Just you.”

“I still have to check,” Jongdae said.

He kind of hated to go, though, given how upset Minseok looked while he suited up in his cold-weather gear and pulled the snowshoes off their hook on the wall.

“You’ll be fine,” Jongdae said. “I’ll only be gone a couple hours. Try the computer. Bundle up next to the fire and keep warm. A couple of the novels on the bookshelf are pretty good.”

When he shut the door, Minseok was standing in the center of the room, hands balled up in the hem of Jongdae’s extra fleece.

It just looked so sad.

So Jongdae tried to hustle up and down the trail, looking for wayward hikers. It took being a professional water polo player to be in good enough shape that “hustling” on snowshoes for any length of time meant actual speed, so the sun was past its zenith when he dragged himself wearily back up onto the cabin’s porch and fumbled at the snowshoes’ clasps with cold fingers.

Minseok was still standing in the center of the cabin, still with hands fisted in the fleece, looking unhappy. But his hair was standing on end, and pieces of fabric and white fluff were strewn across the floor.

“Are you all right?”

Minseok looked at the floor, took one step toward Jongdae, and shook his head.

“I got worried when the light got low. The cat. I didn’t. I’m sorry about the pillow.”

Now that he had context, Jongdae recognized one of the scratchy, ancient pillows that lived on the scratchy, ancient sofa.

“At least you picked the ugliest one to shred,” he said, and laughed.

Minseok moved faster than he could really see – just a blur, and then those angled eyes were close, Minseok’s grip firm around his wrist.

“You aren’t angry?”

Jongdae laid his cold glove over Minseok’s hand and tried to imagine what it was like to try to relearn how to be a person after a season spent – not.

“Cat thing?”

Minseok nodded. Jongdae squeezed his hand.

“Then dude, I sincerely thank you for just shredding a pillow and not, like, pissing all over my slippers.”

Minseok wrinkled his nose and recoiled. But then he shook himself and smiled a little.

“If I had, that would make them _my_ slippers,” he said.

Minseok fumbled with the electric kettle while Jongdae got out of his hiking gear and into warm pajamas. He handed Jongdae a very welcome cup of cocoa and observed the process of stoking the woodstove closely.

“Sorry, I should’ve showed you this earlier, it got pretty cold, huh?”

“Warmer than outside.”

Jongdae watched Minseok snuggle into the corner of the sofa closest to the woodstove and fetched him a blanket off the pile. They spent a much more pleasant evening than the day before: Minseok hadn’t had any luck getting the internet to connect, but his upset wasn’t as dramatic as it had been.

“It needs clear skies at night, right? For the satellite, and the ionosphere.”

“That’s right,” Jongdae said.

“Stuff’s coming back,” Minseok said. “Sorry if I’m weird.”

“You’re not.”

Minseok wanted to know again why Jongdae was up on the mountain, and what he was supposed to do with himself for 3 months in winter, with his only regular duty being to check the trail. His eyes went wide at “listen to music and write poetry, mostly.”

“Music!” he said, leaning forward swiftly enough that some of his cocoa sloshed out onto the blanket. “Can we listen to music?”

The sight of Jongdae’s phone made him frown again, but Jongdae’s house-cleaning mix of idol pop made him smile, indie rock make him close his eyes and tilt his head back, and about 5 minutes into some Beethoven, Jongdae had no idea what he should do, because Minseok was shuddering into the hands covering his face.

“Don’t turn it off,” Minseok choked when Jongdae did so. “I’m okay, sorry, just – “

Jongdae turned the music back on. He figured they’d spent the previous night wrapped around each other. He scooted closer and put an arm around Minseok’s shoulders, then added the other one when Minseok turned to press his face against Jongdae’s neck until his trembling stopped.

“Sorry,” he said finally.

“You keep apologizing, and I don’t know what for,” Jongdae said. “I can’t imagine what this is like for you, but I see it’s hard. I know you really want to see your family.”

“It’s not that,” Minseok said.

He sat up and wiped his eyes, left Jongdae on the sofa, only to come back a few minutes later with a freshly washed face and the whiskey bottle. He poured a bit into each of their mostly empty cocoa mugs.

“Do you know any shifters?” he asked.

“No. My best friend’s a hybrid, though. Greyhound.”

Minseok nodded.

“It’s embarrassing,” he said after sipping at his mug. “That I got stuck in the cat. Adults don’t, usually. But the longer you’re in, the harder it is to come back out.”

“What happened?”

Jongdae reminded himself not to stare too much. Minseok was so handsome that he was having a hard time keeping in mind such important facts as (a) recent acquaintance and (b) circumstances of vulnerability. Jongdae’s lonely swimsuit area thought this was a terrible idea, but his brain was supposed to be in charge.

Still, the way Minseok shrugged and frowned across the room: whew. Definitely stare-worthy.

He hadn’t mentioned any friend of the girl- or boy- variety, but no one so hot could possibly be single. There had to be someone out there still holding out hope for Minseok: Jongdae would definitely still be pining after this guy after a measly 3 months missing.

Of course, Jongdae was, as Baekhyun liked to point out, “sappy enough to live inside a tree.”

“I don’t really know. Animal brains aren’t great about time management. I think probably a thunderstorm, though. I remember being terrified. And if I was too scared to shift, and kept being too scared to shift – well.”

“That’s terrible!”

Jongdae’s hand took over for itself and grasped Minseok’s bicep. Minseok kind of – leaned Jongdae’s way. Oof.

“It’s still a little bit of a struggle,” Minseok said. “I apologize if I seem clingy. The cat’s still really close to the surface, and every time I get upset I kind of want to hang onto you to remind myself to stay on two feet.”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Jongdae’s mouth said without any accompanying input from his brain, which was caught up in a war between anticipatory glee and the fact that _this guy was under duress and he needed to not be a jerk about it._

“Also, and if your best friend’s a hybrid, hopefully that means it doesn’t sound too weird, but you smell really good.”

Which, granted, Baekhyun had said frequently, including the first time they met, starting with, “You smell friendly, want to grab a beer?”

Given the circumstances, and the closeness of Minseok’s face to his, Jongdae was grateful for his past experience with cute men remarking on his personal scent. It prevented Jongdae from blurting out anything inappropriate like “you’re gorgeous” or “can I kiss you” or anything like that.

Minseok did that slow-blinking thing that housecats did when they were relaxed.

Was it the same with big cats? Or with shifters?

Maybe he was just sleepy.

“What do you want to do about the sleeping arrangements?” Jongdae asked.

Then he cleared his throat, on account of that having come out about an octave above normal.

“I’m happy to take the sofa, you’re probably exhausted from everything you’ve been through.”

Jongdae realized that he was still holding onto Minseok’s arm, and let go. Minseok looked down at his hand and frowned a little.

“Can we not sleep like we did last night?”

Minseok’s fingers plucked at the fabric over Jongdae’s knee.

“Like I said, I’m sorry to invade your personal space like this, I just don’t want to wake up shifted and shred your bed because I’m surprised. Is it too much?”

“Oh no, it’s fine!” Jongdae said. “Really! I just didn’t want to overstep your boundaries or something, it’s actually really helpful, we can bank the fire more if we’re keeping each other warm - “

_Oh nooooo, Kim Jongdae no -_

“And, uh, that saves on firewood, you know. So. It’s good. It’s fine.”

Which was definitely a cue to jump up and away from the danger zone and get to banking that old fire, fires don’t bank themselves you know, ha ha ha! God, he was doomed. Doomed to further traumatize this very cute, very nice traumatized man with whom he’d be stuck in one room for the foreseeable future.

Jongdae tried to snuggle gingerly, but Minseok climbed into the bed and basically wrapped around him like he was a body pillow. Cue another round of: too warm, a little awkward, stubborn ignoring of a double case of morning wood.

“Can I listen to music while you’re out on the trail?” Minseok asked while Jongdae piled on all his cold-weather gear. “I think it might help me not freak out so much.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jongdae said. “I’d say you could come with me, but I only have the one parka.”

“And I’d say I’d shift and come with you, but I’m afraid I’d get stuck again,” Minseok said.

Super terrific, two for two leaving Minseok looking sad in the middle of the room.

Anyway, the trail remained empty, the weather seemed to be clearing up, and no further pillows had been shredded on his return. In fact, the cabin was warm and smelled terrific. Even better, Minseok was sitting in front of the computer smiling with a total disregard for the tears running down his face.

“Did you get a message through?”

“I think so,” Minseok said. “I figured I’d type up an email and just keep trying to hit send. About ten minutes ago, my inbox loaded a couple of new emails, and I didn’t get an error message."

Jongdae might’ve joined in with the tears thing if his face hadn’t been so frozen.

“That’s great!”

“I don’t know for sure. I lost the connection again right away.”

“We’re hoping for the best,” Jongdae said, trying to sound all convinced and firm.

Minseok wiped his face and nodded.

“Right. Hoping for the best.”

Minseok was smiley for the rest of the day, even after the satellite window came up but the phone still wouldn’t connect. The lopsided, gummy smile would’ve been bad enough, given the way it turned Minseok’s cheeks into little steamed buns and his eyes into twinkly crescents, making Minseok even cuter than ever. But his cheerfulness additionally involved a lot of physical contact.

He started by chafing Jongdae’s hands warm as soon as Jongdae had changed out of his outdoor clothes, which nobody had done for Jongdae since probably his mom when he was a kid. While they were making dinner, Minseok leaned over and rubbed his cheek against Jongdae’s shoulder, before saying in a breathy voice,

“I don’t know what would’ve happened if it weren’t for you.”

Jongdae dropped his spoon into the soup pot; by the time he had fished it back out, he had a desperate grip on himself. In his utter lack of wisdom, Jongdae snuck a glance at Minseok, who wore a small smile. Jongdae had barely known this guy for 48 hours, it was definitely not enough time to read anything into any facial expressions at all.

“Well, you and your – partner? – can take me out to dinner or something to thank me when I return to civilization in March,” Jongdae said.

Hmm, maybe his grip on himself wasn’t as firm as he’d thought.

Minseok’s eyebrows shot up, and another one of those sigh-inducing smiles spread across his face.

“Oh, I’m not mated,” he said in a tone deep enough to almost sound like a purr.

“Ah,” Jongdae squeaked.

Minseok did that slow blinking thing again. Jongdae tightened his grasp on the spoon.

“March, huh?” Minseok said. “Tell me about that.”

Jongdae sprinted down that safe route of escape, and by the time he was done babbling about the Park Service, every other park ranger and long-distance hiker he’d ever met, and his plans for lots of listening to very nerdy music and writing very nerdy poetry until spring, dinner was over.

“I’m definitely up for some of that nerdy music,” Minseok said. “Play me something you really like.”

Jongdae had never before met anyone who was made so very cuddly by listening to Arvo Pärt.

“Sorry,” Minseok said, halfway in Jongdae’s lap and sounding not sorry at all as he rubbed his cheek against Jongdae’s, “I’m just so relieved to be back on two feet, doing something civilized.”

Jongdae, currently having a number of not-very-civilized thoughts, stuck to a nod for safety.

Later, he tried to tell himself that it was the renewed howling of the wind outside that kept him awake, and not the way that, in his sleep, Minseok had wound up against him, mouth touching his neck and one leg between his thighs.

He was so grateful for utterly miserable weather the next morning, because slogging through sleet on top of icy snow was a great distraction from lusting after perfectly nice shifters who were going through a thing and didn’t realize how they were driving a person completely out of his mind with all the snuggling.

“Oh no, look at you,” Minseok said when Jongdae dragged his sodden, frozen self back inside. “Straight into the shower with you, mister, I’ll get the kettle going.”

This was accompanied by Minseok pulling Jongdae’s warm gear off him and propelling him into the bathroom. Jongdae climbed back out of the shower, partially thawed, to find pajamas piled onto the sink, including the fleece Minseok had worn his first night.

Jongdae stepped out of the bathroom and into an absurdly handsome shifter, who stood really extremely close while he smiled and zipped the fleece up around Jongdae’s neck.

Minseok inhaled deeply and smiled.

“Feeling warmer?”

“Yes, thanks,” Jongdae croaked.

“Wonderful.”

Minseok pulled him by his wrist to the sofa and pushed him down, then draped a blanket over him. The process of tucking the blanket around all of Jongdae’s edges was extensive and followed by the placing of a mug of tea in his hands.

And then Minseok sat at the other end of the sofa with his own mug in hand. He undid the blanket enough to tangle their legs together.

Jongdae felt all of his bones transform into fizzy bath tablets, dissolving into his blood with the scent of flowers and the sound of a very earnest ballad sung by some really cute dude singing with his eyes closed. Legs tangled together!

If nothing else, they had to figure out how to get Minseok down the mountain before he gave Jongdae a heart condition.

“I worried a lot again today,” Minseok said. “The weather was so terrible. Do you really have to check the trail every day?”

“I guess. I don’t think all the rangers go out absolutely every day,” Jongdae said. “But with the weather so bad. If anybody’s out there and they get stuck, a couple hours could make the difference between live hiker and dead hiker.”

“So responsible,” Minseok murmured.

Okay, Jongdae for sure was not imagining the way Minseok’s toe stroked his knee, right?

“This must be hard on your partner, a whole season away,” Minseok said.

“Oh, well, you know,” Jongdae said. “Part of why I volunteered for this shift was because I’m not dating anybody. Figured I might as well let all the married people spend the new year with their families, right? And my parents are going to see my brother in Seattle, so it seemed like the perfect time.”

“It certainly worked out well for me,” Minseok said.

Jongdae found himself incapable of coming up with a sensible response to that. He would’ve liked to say that any ranger would’ve helped out, but there were for sure a couple of people who’d have loaded up the rifle in the back closet as their first option. And winter in the mountains was tough on all creatures, much less a shifter who wasn’t used to living in the cold and had only 3 months’ hunting experience.

Plus which, there was a wholly unreasonable part of himself deep inside that imagined Minseok stuck in this cabin with any of his coworkers, sitting legs tangled together with them, and was furious. That was hardly productive.

“I’m sorry the weather was too crappy to try to get a message through to your family again today,” he said finally.

Then he felt bad, because Minseok looked so worried.

“How long does it usually stay like this?”

Jongdae reached down to squeeze the foot by his knee by way of apology and comfort.

“It should clear up soon. It’s too early for weeks of bad weather. I’m sure you’ll actually be in touch soon.”

“Hoping for the best,” Minseok said, smiling up from a lowered face and looking (improbably) even more handsome than ever.

“Hoping for the best,” Jongdae said.

The next morning, as if an answer to their hopes, was still and bright, the sky a warm blue above all the snow. The kind of bright, beautiful day that could distract a man from having awoken halfway underneath a handsome houseguest who had their head resting on one’s chest and a hand wrapped around one’s waist.

As bright as the sun was, it paled next to the smile on Minseok’s face when Jongdae returned to the cabin. Jongdae had barely unbuckled his snowshoes before Minseok hugged him close.

“It went through,” he said in a rough voice. “They got it.”

All of Jongdae’s trouser troubles receded in the face of pure joy. Minseok’s worries, gone, and his poor family’s sadness erased. Jongdae put his arms around Minseok’s waist and leaned back, lifting him off the floor while they both laughed, until Minseok squirmed and Jongdae put him down.

Minseok smiled that blinding smile at him again, then leaned in to put his head on Jongdae’s shoulder. Jongdae rubbed his back.

“I could thank you every day for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t be enough,” Minseok murmured.

Jongdae told himself that the thing shivering around behind his sternum was just the need to write a poem in response to that.

“I’m so, so glad for you,” he said.

Minseok was like a super ball for the rest of the afternoon until the window of opportunity for the satellite phone came up – he peppered Jongdae with questions about all his friends, spent 20 minutes banging around in the 4 kitchen cabinets trying to convince himself that there were ingredients for cookies (there were not).

“I’ll go out again and give you some privacy,” Jongdae said while he set up the phone.

Minseok grabbed his wrist.

“No. Please stay,” he said.

He sounded so worried that Jongdae nodded. His grip was tight on Jongdae’s wrist while the phone rang, and slightly painful when he said, “Mom? Mama!” in a choked voice, then started to cry.

Jongdae felt so awkward, but Minseok kept holding onto him, changing his grip until Jongdae had an arm around his shoulders with Minseok’s head tucked up against his neck while he talked to his family on the satellite phone, occasionally shivering with emotion and occasionally laugh-crying. Minseok must’ve apologized a hundred times for getting stuck in the cat, for worrying them. Every time, Jongdae tried to squeeze his shoulders and hoped that Minseok’s parents were similarly comforting on the other end of the line.

“My dad wants to talk to you,” Minseok said at one point, holding out the bulky satellite phone.

“Jongdae-ssi,” a low voice said when Jongdae took the phone, “we can’t thank you enough for making our Minseok safe enough to return to us.”

“I’m so glad, sir. I’ll get him back to you as soon as possible.”

“As long as he’s safe. That’s everything,” Minseok’s father said.

Minseok squirmed against Jongdae’s side a couple of times during the ensuing conversation, a couple of times trying to protest something but ending with “okay, yeah, okay.” The goodbyes were extended and emotional; Jongdae sat with Minseok’s shoulders in a firm embrace, not only for the end of the phone call but after, until Minseok’s breath stopped sounding so shaky.

“Satellite calls are expensive, aren’t they?” Minseok said after a few minutes of sitting with his head on Jongdae’s shoulder and one hand clutching Jongdae’s fleece. “I’ll pay for it, of course.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Minseok stood abruptly.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

Jongdae figured it made sense that Minseok would need a few minutes of privacy to pull himself together. He put the phone back on its charger and made their dinner.

He tried not to stare too much when Minseok emerged, still scrubbing at his hair with a towel. His eyes didn’t look too red, and his expression, if serious, didn’t appear troubled. He walked over to stand close and place his hand on Jongdae’s forearm.

“I truly don’t know how to thank you,” he said.

If he had looked just a little less solemn, Jongdae might have busted out with something stupid like “how about a date next spring?” Thankfully, Jongdae behaved himself and only patted Minseok’s hand, told him yet again that he was just glad to have helped.

By the time they sat down to eat, Minseok’s mood had lightened, and he asked all about Jongdae’s family before launching into stories about his own, face handsomer than ever with the way it shone with happiness.

“You’re a chaebol?” Jongdae spluttered after hearing about the family medical device company.

Minseok laughed, a cute little “ha ha ha” sound accompanied by one hand covering his mouth.

“Just a minor one. If I’d had a creative bent, I would’ve been free to pursue that, but it turns out that I’m perfectly happy nerding it up and doing the books.”

“Dang,” Jongdae said.

His mouth ran away without his brain.

“Want to buy a poet? I’m totally for sale.”

When he smiled really broadly, it became apparent that several of Minseok’s teeth were very sharp. Jongdae shivered with more than just embarrassment.

“I don’t know, I haven’t read any of your work, and I don’t want to buy a _bad_ poet.”

He laughed at Jongdae’s rude response.

He was snuggly again after they’d cleaned up, worming his way around to sit with his head on Jongdae’s shoulder. Jongdae was glad his dumb comment hadn’t been offensive.

Minseok plucked at Jongdae’s fleece like he had during the phone call. Jongdae reminded himself of how some shifters and hybrids were just really tactile and he couldn’t read anything into it. He made himself remember the time he’d tried to kiss Baekhyun, who had literally spluttered and jumped around all the edges of the room for a while before yelling a whole speech about friendship, and how friendship was a great thing, and oh by the way he’d been secretly dating the miniature scary dude from the farmer’s market for 6 months.

Jongdae put his arm back around Minseok anyway. He liked cuddling as much as anybody. And he could just pretend that his body ended at about chest level.

“My dad said I should go down the mountain shifted,” Minseok said after a few minutes of playing with loft-spun polyester.

“By yourself?” Jongdae blurted.

Minseok nodded.

Jeez, if that was the case, he could leave any time. Jongdae’s arm tightened around him of its own volition. In response, Minseok turned a little, so his face rested on Jongdae’s collarbone.

“You said you were concerned about shifting, though,” Jongdae said.

Minseok nodded.

“A lot.”

They sat for a few minutes. Jongdae discovered that in addition to his other conundrums, the top of Minseok’s head was in prime kissing position, and he seemed the kind of upset that inspired a desire for head-kissing.

“Maybe I could – try?” Minseok said. “You’ll be right here.”

“Of course I will. With a cup of coffee in hand, though, instead of pepper spray.”

He felt Minseok’s smile against his chest.

“Maybe go with on your trail check, see how it might be to go back down. Home.”

“Sure. But I’m for damn sure not letting you go down the mountain alone, no matter how many feet you’re on. It’s a two-day hike to the closest trailhead. We’ll go together. You can sleep in a proper tent, and I won’t have to worry about you.”

“I can’t ask you to leave your post for four days, Jongdae.”

“Oh please,” Jongdae said. “If a hiker needs help getting back to civilization, it’s my job to help them get there. Besides, I can email Baek and have him bring another box of cocoa packets to the trailhead, since somebody around here keeps drinking all mine up.”

Minseok thumped him with one fist.

“Not tomorrow,” Minseok said. “I need to test it out first, make sure I won’t get stuck again.”

“Of course, take your time.”

The way Minseok’s fingers played with his fleece stopped being like a nervous tic and started to resemble something more like a slow stroking of Jongdae’s chest. Jongdae tried to remember not to die, especially when Minseok snuggled in closer still, his head against Jongdae’s neck.

“I remember a little of it,” Minseok said after a few minutes of very gently torturing Jongdae via warm breath against his skin.

“I remember seeing other hikers and wanting to steer clear of most of them. I followed one couple for a while, because they had meat in their packs that wasn’t wrapped securely.”

He spread his fingers and rubbed Jongdae’s chest a little more firmly.

“But once I caught a whiff of you, I never stopped following you.”

“Oh. Really?” Jongdae choked, desperately willing his body to ignore – pretty much everything happening at the moment.

“Tracked you for days. Ran off a fox that was trying to dig into the cabin. Every time you opened the door, I wanted to knock you down and lie on top of you.”

Jongdae pleaded with his brain not to Go There.

It Went There.

“That would’ve been really alarming,” he said.

Minseok inhaled deeply. Then he laughed and sat up, grinning at Jongdae.

“I should stop teasing you,” he said.

Jongdae found himself unable to connect to any normal mental activity.

“What?”

Minseok put one hand to Jongdae’s face.

“You’re so good,” Minseok said. “I really appreciate how hard you’re working not to take advantage or make assumptions. But you know I can smell how much you want me, Jongdae.”

Oh wow, Cringe City, population 1.

“I’m sorry.”

“Dude. Only be sorry if you’re going to actually tell me not to kiss you,” Minseok said.

Cringe City population zero, as Jongdae emigrated to Confusion Town.

“I would – not? Tell you to? Not?” he stammered.

“Great, because I really like how the corners of your mouth turn up like that, it’s super cute and I pretty much thought they looked really kissable the first minute I could see you properly.”

“Oh yeah?” Jongdae tried to say, except that his mouth was otherwise occupied.

Jongdae was a die-hard fan of first kisses. He liked them all: shy, unsure, feather-light brushes of lip against lip; the confident diving-in of two people who’d been dancing around each other for a while; the messy grappling of tongues on a club dance floor amid loud music and too much alcohol. He liked the rush of learning a new person’s taste, the give and take of what someone liked.

Minseok, despite those sharp teeth, despite being an actual predator, kissed Jongdae slowly, easily. His hands curved around Jongdae’s jaw, fingertips brushing under Jongdae’s ears while his lips moved softly against Jongdae’s. Jongdae gave himself up to that gentle movement against his mouth, until he couldn’t help shifting with impatience and his fingers clutched at Minseok’s waist.

He felt Minseok’s smile, then Minseok’s thumb tugging at his chin. Jongdae opened his mouth, and in the space of a breath, the kiss changed. Minseok swung one leg over Jongdae’s lap and conducted a complete invasion of Jongdae’s mouth, until Jongdae completely misplaced his ability to register anything other than Minseok’s hands on him, Minseok’s mouth, the weight of Minseok in his lap. He slid his hands down over the curve of Minseok’s ass and pulled him forward until their hips were flush together.

Minseok made a low sound in his throat, a kind of growl-purr thing that was possibly the sexiest thing Jongdae had ever heard.

“The way you go all wide-eyed and press your lips together when you’re trying to hide how flustered you are, you have no idea how cute it is. I’ve been dying.”

Minseok said this while placing a series of little bites down the side of Jongdae’s neck, firm enough to make Jongdae shudder but not enough to hurt.

“You hid it really well,” Jongdae managed to get out.

Minseok laughed once. He bit down harder, until Jongdae hissed, then licked at the same spot.

“Want you,” he said up against Jongdae’s skin.

“God, yes, please,” Jongdae said.

There followed several minutes of awkward fumbling and airborne shirts, hands shoved down pajama pants. Jongdae smiled while he licked at the tendons of Minseok’s neck, feeling the heavy, uncut dick in his hand and stroking it swiftly, even while Minseok’s fingers teased the head of his own cock and made Jongdae’s heartbeat hit mach speed.

It was clumsy and too dry and amazing – Minseok tossed his head and thrust up into Jongdae’s hand before Jongdae’s arm even started to get tired. Jongdae held Minseok’s shoulder and stared up into his face, watched how his eyebrows angled and he bit his lip when he came. It was beautiful.

Just like when Minseok grinned briefly, reached down to run his hand over Jongdae’s, and finished pulling Jongdae off with his come. This was so intrinsically hot that Jongdae followed pretty fast, with a low groan into Minseok’s mouth.

“Usually I have much better stamina,” Minseok laughed against Jongdae’s cheek. “It’s been a while.”

“Oh, same here. The been a while part, anyhow,” Jongdae panted.

The fingers of Minseok’s clean hand dragged down the side of Jongdae’s face.

“I can’t imagine how that’s so. We’d better make up for lost time.”

His libido having been set free, Jongdae kept making Minseok laugh with the way he nosed around for another kiss about every other minute. Except that it had been a really long time since Jongdae had been so comfortable with someone he knew so little, and Minseok’s mouth was freaking amazing. Jongdae would’ve been content with simply those soft, agile lips, except that Minseok was also built like an underwear model, so Jongdae wanted to touch as much of him as possible pretty much constantly, and it was all really distracting.

Minseok solved the issue of there being no easy way to wash the sleeping bag by containing all the morning’s mess in his mouth, by which point Jongdae had forgotten anything he’d ever known other than Minseok’s tongue working him, the low-pitched laugh in the back of his throat when Jongdae put hands in his hair and cried out.

“Let me return the favor,” Jongdae said when he remembered how to speak.

“You will,” Minseok said with a filthy smile and an even filthier kiss.

Jongdae watched Minseok stiffen up a bit over breakfast. He didn’t even try to hide it, which made warmth bloom in Jongdae’s chest. He resolutely pushed aside the thought of Minseok’s imminent departure.

“Worried?” he asked.

Minseok’s smile was brief but warm.

“Less than I have been. I can’t imagine I’ll get stuck in the cat when I know I get to kiss you again as soon as I shift back.”

“I am a potent lure,” Jongdae said, flashing the grin that always made Baekhyun yell about needing sunglasses.

Minseok snorted and rolled his eyes but reached out to clasp Jongdae’s hand.

Jongdae kept up the ridiculous while they got ready for the trail check, giving a long speech about keeping the coffeepot on until they got back and musing whether waving the pot under cat-Minseok’s nose would be enough or he’d need to dump it over Min’s head. By the end of it, Minseok was saying “ARGH” with one leg out of his pajama pants, and Jongdae had to laugh just because he was giddy.

Minseok stood naked in front him for a far shorter time than Jongdae would’ve preferred, and the shift was almost too fast to see, a blur of brown flashing to gold, and the puma sat in front of him by the cabin door.

“Feel okay?”

The puma – was it still Minseok? – stretched out his head and licked the back of Jongdae’s hand, his tongue rough and hot.

It was a short trail check: while the puma seemed perky and interested in sniffing every third tree for the first little bit, the longer they were out, the more subdued he became and the closer he stuck to Jongdae’s heels. The second time Jongdae almost clipped him in the face with one snowshoe, he leaned over to stroke the puma’s head.

“Anxious to get back?”

The puma rubbed his head against Jongdae’s hip like a cat marking a wall. Back at the cabin, as soon as he changed back, Minseok hugged Jongdae swiftly before jumping into his pajamas with chattering teeth.

“How’d it go?” Jongdae asked when they were sitting by the woodstove, some of that still-hot coffee warming their hands and bellies.

“Had a couple of tricky moments,” Minseok said. “Sticking close to you made it easier to remember myself.”

Jongdae was positive that the smile he made in response to that must’ve been pretty sappy, but he didn’t care. They put the hand-cranked washing machine through its paces with the previous day’s now-crunchy loungewear. Even better, the cabinet where it was housed was otherwise filled dozens of clean but ratty towels, thus solving their mess problem.

Minseok’s eyebrows shot up when Jongdae dug his bottle of lube from the bag next to the bed.

“Had lots of plans, did you?”

Jongdae laughed.

“Three months up here mostly alone? Running out of lube would be a crisis.”

None of that solved the issue of their lack of condoms, but they had a very slippery, very fun time on a pile of towels in front of the woodstove, anyhow. When Minseok twined his legs together and squeezed, the space between his thighs was warm and tight enough to drive any dick-having person out of their minds, not to mention how he arched up into it when Jongdae sucked hard at the skin under his collarbone.

Jongdae rebalanced the scales by taking an inordinate amount of time to bring Minseok off with his mouth and, eventually, a couple of fingers in his ass, until Minseok’s pleas to come were interspersed with growls. Jongdae felt around a little to be sure he’d hit the right spot, took a deep breath, then pressed up and in at the same time that he exhaled and sank all the way down on Minseok’s dick. Anybody passing by at that moment would definitely wonder why there was a freaked-out wild animal inside the Park Service cabin.

Jongdae sat back, wiped his chin, and coughed a little around a glow of perfect satisfaction.

“Talk about a reminder of why two feet is better than four,” Minseok said, before he tackled Jongdae for a bunch more kissing.

It was a great few days after that – the weather stayed cold but clear, and Minseok wrote and received long emails from his family that inspired him to hug Jongdae a lot after, so everyone was happy. Minseok was able to shift for longer without discomfort each day on the trail check, and the rest of their days were taken up with listening to music, chatting about everything under the sun, and making out. Between his attraction and the ease with which they lived together in that cramped space, Jongdae could feel himself falling deep into the Well of Liking, and his constant reminders that Minseok was going to – needed to – go home at the first reasonable opportunity were all he had going to keep himself from saying something stupid.

The fifth day, they made a full trail check together, and at the end of it, the puma rolled over on his back in the snow in front of the cabin, stretching and pawing at the air with his mouth open and tongue lolling. Jongdae laughed while he rubbed the puma’s belly, then got very delightfully squished when he tried to similarly rub Minseok’s.

As terrific as that was, he wasn’t surprised when Minseok’s expression went serious after a round of kissing. His hand was so soft against Jongdae’s cheek.

“I think I’m ready to go home,” Minseok said.

Disappointment was like a huge weight that settled between Jongdae’s sternum and spine. But he nodded, then nuzzled his face against Minseok’s touch.

“You’ve seemed a lot more comfortable, the past couple of days,” he said.

“Thanks to you,” Minseok said. “I wish – “

But he didn’t continue. Jongdae watched Minseok chew his bottom lip and dredged up some bravery.

“Not like you’re going to go down off the mountain and disappear, right? We’ll keep in touch. I’ll need those emails to keep me entertained until spring.”

Minseok butted Jongdae in the temple with his head. His smile was more than halfway successful, but the edges weren’t quite solid.

“We will definitely keep in touch,” he said.

Of course that was what Jongdae wanted to hear, but people always said that, didn’t they? The past week-ish had been really intense, but it was separated from the routine of daily life. They hadn’t had anyone but each other, in this cabin up on the mountain. In the city, Minseok would have his family and friends, his life to put back together. One lonely park ranger so many kilometers away might seem like a dream, no matter how well-intentioned Minseok might be.

So maybe it was worry talking later when Jongdae grabbed Minseok’s bare shoulder and said, “I know it’s irresponsible, I don’t care. My last test came out clean, you could smell if I’m lying, I want you to fuck me.”

Minseok went still for a heartbeat, then he curled his hand around the back of Jongdae’s neck. He looked fierce and gorgeous, and Jongdae ached for him.

“You trust me like that?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“Yes, god, please,” Jongdae said.

They’d had so much fun over the past few days, hands and mouths and cocks, making each other crazy and dirtying up every towel in the place. But now, Minseok stretched Jongdae open with such slow care that the heavy feeling lodged itself in his chest again, threatening his hold on his emotions when Minseok kept kissing his chest, kept saying things like “doing okay?” and “you look so good like this.”

Jongdae was glad for the distance of turning over on his elbows and knees, so that he could hide his face behind his hands while Minseok pushed inside him, thick and hot, so good that Jongdae bit the side of his hand just to center himself.

“Fuck,” Minseok said, “fuck, Dae, that’s good.”

It was even better when Minseok started to move, in long, smooth strokes that left Jongdae gasping. He was probably killing his knees, rocking back to meet Minseok’s thrusts, and it was totally worth it. They moved together, until Minseok leaned forward and wrapped one arm around Jongdae’s chest. His breath was hot against the back of Jongdae’s neck, and the warmth of his body was just an addition to the already-full catalog of delightful sensations Jongdae had going on. Minseok licked his shoulder, bit down lightly. He moved faster, and his breath grew harsh. Jongdae could feel that tightening low in his pelvis as he got closer to coming.

Minseok growled – a long, deep, rolling sound so sexy that Jongdae tilted his head back to hear it better.

Then Minseok froze.

“You have to turn over,” he said, sounding muffled and raspy. “Sorry. It’s okay. Sorry. But you need to turn over now.”

He sounded so alarmed that Jongdae pulled away and flopped over on his back. Minseok looked wide-eyed and rumpled, and maybe a little fangier than usual.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s – yeah.” Minseok said. “Yeah, I just needed a change of position, is that okay?”

“Your face is pretty great, it’s not like I’m going to object to looking at it,” Jongdae said, going for a grin that he hoped was comforting.

Minseok still looked worried, so Jongdae pulled him down and kissed him until they were both gasping again, hands working each other. Minseok slid back into him slowly enough that Jongdae wriggled with impatience, and Minseok smiled. Then it was all motion and hands and kisses until Jongdae shorted out with a loud cry, spilling over Minseok’s hand. After that, he lay back and blissed out to the feeling of Minseok inside him, the gorgeous sight of Minseok’s closed eyes and clenched teeth when he came.

They cleaned up the bare minimum and rolled up together in the sleeping bag and blankets by the woodstove. Jongdae tangled up as close to Minseok as he could get and pretended that he was capable of sleep.

They caught a signal on the satellite phone in the morning; despite his happiness, arranging to meet his family at the trailhead, Jongdae thought maybe Minseok felt a little of the underlying strangeness. He was quiet, but several times he pulled at Jongdae’s elbow and drew him into a lingering kiss.

“I feel terrible that you have to carry everything,” he said while he watched Jongdae pack tent, food, and other gear.

“If you were injured, I’d have to drag you down the mountain in a sled,” Jongdae said around a grin. “And it’s mostly stuff I need to carry for myself anyhow. I think I can extend myself far enough for you to lug around an extra set of pajamas. What with all the orgasms and everything.”

“Oh, well, I’m sure I’ll pay for your trouble when we camp tonight,” Minseok said.

Jongdae wasn’t sure whether he enjoyed the filthy smile or the feeling up of his butt more.

It was hard to feel miserable for the first part of the day, with the puma gamboling around in the snow next to him. Jongdae kept laughing – he’d never imagined that such a very large, very toothy predator could be so silly. And when he wasn’t jumping around like an oversized kitten, the puma walked by Jongdae’s side, close enough for Jongdae to rest a hand on his head.

They reached the halfway-point shelter when the light was almost gone. Over the course of their descent, the snow had thinned out so that Jongdae had clipped the snowshoes to his pack midafternoon. He dug Min’s PJs from his pack and didn’t let himself stare while Minseok shifted, then dressed. They started a fire and set water heating while they put up the tent.

By the end of that, Jongdae felt melancholy ringing in him like a bell tolling. He tried to hide it, but given the way Minseok sat pressed close against him, head on his shoulder, Jongdae figured he must be doing a pretty bad job.

“Jongdae,” Minseok murmured later, lips against Jongdae’s skin, with a tiny lantern making the red tent glow faintly. “How have we known each other for such a short time? I’ll miss you.”

Jongdae kissed him, that warm mouth that moved so eagerly against his own, that full bottom lip that begged to be sucked. Maybe Minseok really would miss him. Maybe this really wasn’t goodbye.

But just in case, Jongdae tried to memorize the beauty of Minseok’s dark eyes, the taste of his mouth, the strength in his hands when he pulled Jongdae to him. They teased each other for what seemed like ages, foreheads pressed together while their hands stroked and pulled. They slept wrapped close and sticky. Jongdae woke first and watched Minseok sleep through the growing light, the way his mouth hung slightly open in sleep, until he frowned and wriggled, but smiled at Jongdae as soon as he opened his eyes.

Jongdae had figured he’d write a lot of poetry about loneliness and winter while he was up on the mountain. Looked like it was going to be a pile of mushy romantic stuff instead. If potentially still lonely.

They made good time and got to the trailhead by early afternoon. Jongdae and Minseok had barely cleared the trees before the door of the parked sedan opened and three people bolted out of it. The puma ran to them; Jongdae watched from the edge of the asphalt while they rubbed the puma’s head, laughing and crying at the same time, until the puma yowled.

“Sorry!” the man – Jongdae presumed Minseok’s father – said.

He pulled a huge towel out of the car and held it up. Jongdae watched the legs under the bottom edge of the towel halve in number and become markedly less furry. Minseok hugged his family, finally, with the towel wrapped around himself, until his mother fussed at his shivering and Mr. Kim held the towel up again while Minseok dressed in clothes they’d brought.

Jongdae wondered whether he needed to just kind of sneak backwards into the trees, but as soon as he was dressed, Minseok called for him.

For several minutes, Jongdae found himself the recipient of nearly as much cry-hugging as Minseok had gotten. Mr. Kim started out trying to shake Jongdae’s hand but seemed unable to resist embracing him. Mrs. Kim didn’t even pretend. She put her hands on Jongdae’s cheeks, then hugged him close. Even Minseok’s sister (who looked like a female carbon copy of her brother) hugged him without a hint of shyness.

“We’re forever grateful,” Mr. Kim kept saying. “Really, to have our Minseok back, you don’t know.”

Jongdae couldn’t help getting a bit misty about it himself, with all the emotion going on. Every time he tried to downplay his role, Minseok fussed and Mrs. Kim pulled on his arm, until Jongdae just went with the flow and let them act like they were going to adopt him or something.

“If we keep you here long enough, will you agree to let us take you to dinner?” Minseok asked finally. “Maybe stay the night? I can drive you back here in the morning.”

Jongdae looked at how low the sun was in the sky and shook his head.

“I wish I could say yes,” he said. “But there have been enough nice days that hikers could show up any time. I really should get back up the mountain.”

Minseok twined their fingers together and smiled. Jongdae went cold with the surprise that he would do so in front of his family.

“I understand,” Minseok said. “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t looking out for everyone else.”

Which was about the nicest way Jongdae had ever heard anybody refer to his responsibility complex.

His next surprise was Minseok’s family pulling stuff out of the car and holding it out toward him: a box of cocoa packets, a bottle of whisky _far_ nicer than the one he’d bought for himself, and, improbably, a very fancy throw pillow. Jongdae laughed.

“Evening things out, huh?”

Minseok shook his head.

“That’s not possible. But at least the pillow isn’t scratchy.”

It looked hilarious strapped to the top of Jongdae’s backpack.

The Kims all hugged him again. When Minseok did so, he placed a kiss to Jongdae’s neck that was so swift and soft that Jongdae wondered whether he’d imagined it. Then they all stood and waved until he was out of sight on the trail.

Jongdae sighed, shifted his backpack straps, and went back up the mountain. He had a miserable night’s sleep on the trail, mostly because he was miserable. He was up and hiking at dawn, making do with a canteen and a protein bar while he walked, and returned to the cabin early enough to do an afternoon trail check.

The cabin seemed too big without Minseok in it. Jongdae drank more of his own inferior whisky than was probably a good idea, but at least it helped him get to sleep.

The next day, he sat down to compose a long email to Baekhyun about his recent adventures, only to find that Minseok had already written.

Jongdae’s heart took a trip up to the forest canopy and hovered around there for the rest of the day. It was a short email, mostly a report that they’d arrived home safely and eaten a meal that had never once been freeze-dried. Jongdae read it 3 times, responded, and read it a couple more times for good measure. He also typed out that missive to Baek.

A couple of hikers showed up soon after that: a retired couple, well-outfitted and obviously experienced hikers. He invited them in for showers and a hot dinner and spent a very pleasant evening chatting with them. They said they’d chosen their weekend-long hike because storms were predicted to move through again soon.

The next couple of months chugged along that way: bad weather, trail checks, the odd hiker. Jongdae wrote a lot of really bad poetry that he thought might be possible to revise into less-bad poetry with a bit of distance. He wore one arm out keeping his hand-crank battery charged so he could listen to music, and wore the other arm out bringing himself off to the memory of Minseok fucking him. He spent way more time than anticipated on the elderly computer, reading and writing emails.

Jongdae couldn’t believe how reliable a correspondent Minseok turned out to be. It was like a continuation of their afternoon conversations over cocoa: Minseok asked about his days, his writing, the trail checks. He talked about his own strange goings-on, having to report to the police station so they could close their missing-persons case, doctors’ visits, airing out his apartment, and having to bear how mad Tan was at him, despite the fact that Min’s parents had in fact picked the cat up within a few days of Minseok’s disappearance and spent the intervening months spoiling the beast rotten.

The connection was bad enough that none of Minseok’s photos ever loaded, but Jongdae really enjoyed the stories. He enjoyed even more not having been forgotten. He didn’t let himself admit out loud in his own mind that he enjoyed not once reading any report of Minseok going out on any dates.

At the end of February, Seulgi showed up at the cabin door to drop off her first load of stuff for the spring shift. Jongdae had had a run of nearly a month without another human face – he was so happy to see her that he felt giddy. And that was _before_ she unpacked the computer from her backpack.

“Where’d this thing come from?”

It was a new, high-end model, a tiny cube with all wireless accessories and a monitor that unfolded into a screen big enough to watch an actual movie on.

“Papa Kim donated that,” Seulgi said.

“Papa who?”

Seulgi rolled her eyes at him.

“From your shifter friend. Minseok. His dad. They’ve all appointed themselves the caretakers of our ranger station. All of a sudden we have tech that’s younger than I am, and they replaced the sofa in the break room with something that won’t give us the plague. Mama Kim even sent up a container of brownies for you, oh, and there’s a letter.”

Jongdae stared at the container of brownies in one hand and the green envelope in the other hand and wondered what the heck was going on.

He shook it off, and he and Seulgi had a fun night while she filled him in on all the gossip from the world at large while kicking his butt at cards. Jongdae slept on the sofa, and was very glad of the Kims’ gift pillow, which was both soft and clean enough not to creep him out.

Seulgi took two brownies and left him with a smirk the next morning. The day was bright but chilly, and Jongdae sat outside to read his letter. Minseok’s handwriting was infinitely tidier than Jongdae’s own, of course: straight, clear lines marching across the page.

_Dear Jongdae –_

_I hate doing this by letter. I’ve tried to be patient, to wait for you to come back and say it to your face. And I know how ridiculous it is that I’ve reached my breaking point when you’ll be back in barely a month, but I can’t wait anymore._

_Maybe you don’t even remember, that last night together at the cabin, when I needed a moment, when I made you turn over._

_This is so awkward to write down, but I want you to know about it, Jongdae. In that moment, I almost claimed you._

_Do you know about that sort of thing? From your friend, maybe? That some of us – shifters and hybrids – will have the urge to bite a lover, leave a permanent mark. In the old days, it was how we would mark each other as mated._

_I’d never wanted to claim anyone before, shifter or human. And I know we were under unusual circumstances. I know you and I didn’t talk about what that time together did or didn’t mean._

_But time away from you hasn’t made me think about you any less, Jongdae. Email isn’t enough. I still want – you. To continue our conversation and share too-small spaces. To learn to take care of you as well as you instinctively knew how to take care of me._

_I want to date you properly. I think there might be something lasting here, and I want to find out. With you._

_Yours,_

_Minseok_

Jongdae read the letter. He stared at the trees for a while, then read it again. He looked back up at the soothing green of the pine boughs, and when he looked down at the paper again, the light was too low to read the words again.

He went inside and made himself some dinner, ate it in a daze with the letter by his elbow, cleaned up. After he got ready for bed, he booted up the computer and emailed one word: “yes.”

Somehow it was neither upsetting nor surprising that for the next several days, his inbox remained empty of anything other than spam. Jongdae found himself reading Minseok’s letter several times a day, thinking about it while he trudged up and down the trail. He listened over and over to Arvo Pärt, and the Beethoven violin sonata that had made Minseok weep. He wrote poems that flowed out of him like the meltwater streams that rushed past the trail.

The days blurred together, long and short at the same time. There was a lot to do and even more to think about. So much waited for him now, at the bottom of the mountain.

And then, one afternoon, there was a scratch at the door. Jongdae wasn’t sure his feet touched the floor between where he was standing and the doorknob. He had no question what he would see on the other side: the puma, brown-eyed like wild pumas never were, sitting polite as a housecat on the porch with its tail curled around its feet.

Jongdae did laugh aloud, though, at the little blue backpack strapped around the puma’s chest.

He stepped back to let the puma in and unclasped the backpack at its nod, held it while Minseok shifted to his human form.

He’d had a haircut since the last time Jongdae had seen him, shaved close around the sides but still hanging over his eyes. His smile was even more lovely than Jongdae had remembered.

“I decided not to wait anymore,” Minseok said.

“Thank goodness,” Jongdae told him, and stepped forward for a kiss.


End file.
